Asaṅga (Sanskrit: असंग,Tibetan:ཐོགས་མེད།,Wylie:thogs med,traditional Chinese:無著; ; pinyin:Wúzhuó;Romaji:Mujaku) (fl. 4th century C.E.) was one of the most important spiritual figures ofMahayana Buddhism and the founder of theYogachara school.[1][2][3] Traditionally, he and his half-brotherVasubandhu are regarded as the major classical IndianSanskrit exponents of MahayanaAbhidharma,Vijñanavada (awareness only; also calledVijñaptivāda, the doctrine of ideas or percepts, andVijñaptimātratā-vāda, the doctrine of 'mere representation) thought and Mahayana teachings on thebodhisattva path. He is also traditionally considered as one of the seventeenNalanda masters who taught at the monastery which is located in modern-dayBihar.[4]
There are differing views as to Asaṅga's birthplace. Some sources record that he was born inPuruṣapura (present dayPeshawar inPakistan) in aBrahmin family, which at that time was part of the ancient kingdom ofGandhāra.[5][6][7] However the writings ofButon Rinchen Drub state that Asanga and his brother,Vasubandhu, were born inCentral India.[8] Current scholarship places him in the fourth century CE. He was perhaps originally a member of theMahīśāsaka school or theMūlasarvāstivāda school but later converted toMahāyāna.[2] According to some scholars, Asaṅga's frameworks for Abhidharma writings retained many underlying Mahīśāsaka traits, but other scholars argue that there is insufficient data to determine which school he originally belonged to.[3][9][10]
In the record of his journeys through the kingdoms ofIndia,Xuanzang wrote that Asaṅga was initially a Mahīśāsaka monk, but soon turned toward the Mahāyāna teachings.[11] Asaṅga had a half-brother, Vasubandhu, who was a monk from theSarvāstivāda school. Vasubandhu is said to have taken up Mahāyāna Buddhism after meeting with Asaṅga and one of Asaṅga's disciples.[12]
Asaṅga spent many years in serious meditation and study under various teachers but the narrative of the 6th century monkParamārtha states that he was unsatisfied with his understanding. Paramārtha then recounts how he used his meditative powers (siddhis) to travel toTuṣita Heaven to receive teachings fromMaitreyaBodhisattva onemptiness, and how he continued to travel to receive teachings from Maitreya on theMahayana sutras.[13][14]
Xuanzang (fl. c. 602 – 664), a Chinese monk who traveled to India to study in the Yogacara tradition tells a similar account of these events:[11]
In the great mango grove five or sixli to the southwest of the city (Ayodhya), there is an old monastery where Asaṅga Bodhisattva received instructions and guided the common people. At night he went up to the place of Maitreya Bodhisattva in Tuṣita Heaven to learn theYogācārabhūmi-śāstra, theMahāyāna-sūtra-alaṃkāra-śāstra, theMadhyānta-vibhāga-śāstra, etc.; in the daytime, he lectured on the marvelous principles to a great audience.
Modern scholars disagree on whether the figure of Maitreya in this story is to be considered as Asaṅga's human teacher or as a visionary experience in meditation. Scholars such asFrauwallner held that this figure, sometimes termedMaitreya-nātha, was an actual historical person and teacher.[15] Other scholars argue that this figure was the tutelary deity of Asaṅga (Iṣṭa-devatā) as well as numerous other Yogacara masters, a point noted by the 6th century Indian monkSthiramati.[16] Whatever the case, Asaṅga's experiences led him to travel around India and propagate theMahayana teachings. According toTaranatha'sHistory of Buddhism in India, he founded 25 Mahayana monasteries in India.[17]
Among the most famed monasteries that he established was Veluvana inMagadha region of what is nowBihar.[18] It was here that he hand-picked eight chosen disciples who would all become famed in their own right and spread the Mahayana.[19]
Asaṅga went on to write some key treatises (shastras) of theYogācāra school. Over time, many different works were attributed to him (or to Maitreya, with Asaṅga as transmitter), although there are discrepancies between the Chinese and Tibetan traditions concerning which works are attributed to him.[20] Modern scholars have also problematized and questioned these attributions after critical textual study of the sources. The many works attributed to this figure can be divided into the three following groups.
The first are three works which are widely agreed by ancient and modern scholars to be by Asaṅga:[10][5]
Mahāyānasaṃgraha (Summary of theGreat Vehicle), a systematic exposition of the major tenets of the Yogacara school in ten chapters.[21] Considered hismagnum opus, survives in one Tibetan and four Chinese translations.
Abhidharma-samuccaya, a short summary of the main MahayanaAbhidharma doctrines, in a traditional Buddhist Abhidharma style similar to non-Mahayana expositions.[22] According toWalpola Rahula,[23] the thought of this work is closer to that of the PaliNikāyas than is that of the TheravadinAbhidhamma.[24]
Xianyang shengjiao lun, variously retranslated into Sanskrit asĀryadeśanāvikhyāpana, Āryapravacanabhāṣya, Prakaraṇāryaśāsanaśāstra,Śāsanodbhāvana, andŚāsanasphūrti. A work strongly based on theYogācārabhūmi. Only available in Xuanzang's Chinese translation, but parallel Sanskrit passages can be found in theYogācārabhūmi.
The next group of texts are those that Tibetanhagiographies state were taught to Asaṅga by Maitreya and are thus known as the "FiveDharmas of Maitreya" inTibetan Buddhist scholasticism. According to D.S. Ruegg, the "five works of Maitreya" are mentioned in Sanskrit sources from only the 11th century onwards.[25] As noted byS.K. Hookham, their attribution to a single author has been questioned by modern scholars.[26]
According to the Tibetan tradition, the so called Asanga-Maitreya is:
Mahāyānasūtrālamkāra-kārikā, ("The Adornment ofMahayana sutras", Tib.theg-pa chen-po'i mdo-sde'i rgyan), which presents the Mahāyāna path from the Yogācāra perspective and shows structural similarities with theBodhisattvabhumi. There is a closely related commentary on this text, theMahāyānasūtrālamkāra-bhāṣya. Some scholars, like Mario D'amato, have questioned the attribution of this text to Asanga-Maitreya. Instead, D'amato places this text (together with the commentary, which he considers the work of one author) after theBodhisattvabhumi, but before the composition of Asanga'sMahāyānasaṃgraha (which quotes theMahāyānasūtrālamkāra as an authoritative text).[27]
Madhyāntavibhāga-kārikā ("Distinguishing the Middle and the Extremes", Tib.dbus-dang mtha' rnam-par 'byed-pa), 112 verses that are a key work in Yogācāra philosophy. D'amato also places this text in the second phase of Yogacara scholarship, i.e. after theBodhisattvabhumi, but before the classic works of Asanga and Vasubandhu.[27]
Dharmadharmatāvibhāga ("Distinguishing Phenomena and Pure Being", Tib.chos-dang chos-nyid rnam-par 'byed-pa), a short Yogācāra work discussing the distinction and correlation (vibhāga) between phenomena (dharma) and reality (dharmatā).
Abhisamayalankara ( "Ornament for clear realization",Tib. mngon-par rtogs-pa'i rgyan), a verse text which attempts a synthesis ofPrajñaparamita doctrine and Yogacara thought. There are differing scholarly opinions on authorship, John Makransky writes that it is possible the author was actually Arya Vimuktisena, the 6th century author of the first surviving commentary on this work.[28] Makransky also notes that it is only the later 8th century commentatorHaribhadra who attributes this text to Maitreya, but that this may have been a means to ascribe greater authority to the text.[29] As Brunnhölzl notes, this text is also completely unknown in the Chinese Buddhist tradition.[30]
Ratnagotravibhaga (Exposition of the Jeweled lineage, Tib.theg-pa chen-po rgyud bla-ma'i bstan, a.k.a.Uttāratantra śāstra), a compendium onBuddha-nature attributed to Maitreya via Asaṅga by the Tibetan tradition. The Chinese tradition attributes it to a certain Sāramati (3rd-4th century CE), according to theHuayan patriarchFazang.[31] According toS.K. Hookham, modern scholarship favors Sāramati as the author of the RGV. She also notes there is no evidence for the attribution to Maitreya before the time ofMaitripa (11th century).[32]Peter Harvey concurs, finding the Tibetan attribution less plausible.[33]
According to Karl Brunnhölzl, the Chinese tradition also speaks of five Maitreya-Asanga texts (first mentioned in Dunlun'sYujia lunji), "but considers them as consisting of theYogācārabhūmi, *Yogavibhāga [now lost],Mahāyānasūtrālamkārakā,Madhyāntavibhāga and theVajracchedikākāvyākhyā."[30]
While theYogācārabhūmi śāstra ("Treatise on the Levels of Spiritual Practitioners"), a massive and encyclopaedic work on yogic praxis, has traditionally been attributed to Asaṅga or Maitreyain toto, but most modern scholars now consider the text to be a compilation of various works by numerous authors, and different textual strata can be discerned within its contents.[34] However, Asaṅga may still have participated in the compilation of this work.[10]
The third group of texts associated with Asaṅga comprises two commentaries: theKārikāsaptati, a work on theVajracchedikā, and theĀryasaṃdhinirmocana-bhāṣya (Commentary on theSaṃdhinirmocana). The attribution of both of these to Asaṅga is not widely accepted by modern scholars.[10]
^Asanga at theEncyclopædia Britannica. "Asaṅga, (flourished 5th century AD, b.Puruṣapura, India), influential Buddhist philosopher who established the Yogācāra (“Practice of Yogā”) school of idealism."
^abEngle, Artemus (translator), Asanga,The Bodhisattva Path to Unsurpassed Enlightenment: A Complete Translation of the Bodhisattvabhumi, Shambhala Publications, 2016, Translator's introduction.
^abRahula, Walpola; Boin-Webb, Sara (translators); Asanga,Abhidharmasamuccaya: The Compendium of the Higher Teaching, Jain Publishing Company, 2015, p. xiii.
^Buswell, Robert E. Jr.; Lopez, Donald S. Jr. (24 November 2013).The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton University Press. p. 69.ISBN978-0-691-15786-3.Born into a brāhmana family in Puruṣapura (modern-day Peshawar, Pakistan), Asanga originally studied under Sarvāstivāda (possibly Māhiṣasaka) teachers but converted to the Mahāyāna later in life.
^Jestice, Phyllis G. (2004).Holy People of the World: A Cross-cultural Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 69.ISBN978-1-57607-355-1.Asanga, born in the Gandara region of present-day Pakistan in the city of Purusapura (the modern Peshawar) as the third son of Prasannasila (or Prakasila), was probably active around the fourth or fifth century.
^Kritzer, Robert."Vasubandhu".Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism Online.
^Rama Karana Sarma (1993).Researches in Indian and Buddhist Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Alex Wayman. p. 5
^abRongxi, Li (1996).The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions., Numata Center, Berkeley, p. 153.
^Rongxi, Li (1996).The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions., Numata Center, Berkeley, pp. 154-155.
^Wayman, Alex (1997).Untying the Knots in Buddhism: Selected Essays. p. 213
^Rahula, Walpola; Boin-Webb, Sara (translators); Asanga,Abhidharmasamuccaya: The Compendium of the Higher Teaching, Jain Publishing Company, 2015, p. xiv.
^Being as Consciousness: Yogācāra Philosophy of Buddhism. Tola, Fernando and Carmen Dragonetti. Motilal Banarsidass: 2004 pg xv
^Rahula, Walpola; Boin-Webb, Sara (translators); Asanga,Abhidharmasamuccaya: The Compendium of the Higher Teaching, Jain Publishing Company, 2015, p. xvii.
^Rahula, Walpola; Boin-Webb, Sara (translators); Asanga,Abhidharmasamuccaya: The Compendium of the Higher Teaching, Jain Publishing Company, 2015, p. xviii.
^Dan Lusthaus (2002).Buddhist Phenomenology. Routledge, p. 44, note 5. Lusthaus draws attention to Rahula'sZen and the Taming of the Bull.
^Ruegg, D.S.La Theorie du Tathagatagarbha et du Gotra. Paris: Ecole d'Extreme Orient, 1969, p. 35.
^Hookham, S. K. (1991). The Buddha within: Tathagatagarbha doctrine according to the Shentong interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga. SUNY Press.ISBN0-7914-0357-2. Source; [3] (accessed: Tuesday 5 May 2009), p.325.
^abD’AMATO, M. "THREE NATURES, THREE STAGES: AN INTERPRETATION OF THE YOGĀCĀRA ‘TRISVABHĀVA’-THEORY."Journal of Indian Philosophy, vol. 33, no. 2, 2005, pp. 185–207.JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23497001. Accessed 16 Feb. 2024.
^Makransky, John J.Buddhahood Embodied: Sources of Controversy in India and Tibet SUNY Press, 1997, p. 187.
^Makransky, John J.Buddhahood Embodied: Sources of Controversy in India and Tibet SUNY Press, 1997, p. 17.
^abBrunnhölzl, Karl, When the Clouds Part: The Uttaratantra and Its Meditative Tradition as a Bridge between Sutra and Tantra, Shambhala Publications, 2015, p. 81.
^Williams, Paul, Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, Routledge, 1989, p. 103.
^Hookham, S. K. (1991). The Buddha within: Tathagatagarbha doctrine according to the Shentong interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga. SUNY Press.ISBN0-7914-0357-2. Source; [3] (accessed: Tuesday 5 May 2009), pp.165-166.
^Peter Harvey (1993). "An Introduction to Buddhism." Cambridge University Press, page 114.
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